‘Fifty per cent of S&P 500 firms could be replaced in 10 years’

One of the world’s largest business consultancy firms says many of the largest companies we know today will probably be overtaken by new corporate giants within a decade.

In a report into what’s being called the “fourth industrial revolution”, Deloitte says: “About 50 percent of S&P 500 firms will likely be replaced over the next 10 years due to new digital disruptors and inability of established firms to reinvent themselves.”

The consultancy adds: “How companies choose to evolve, explore new avenues for growth, and better engage their customers can make the difference between thriving and extinction.”

Deloitte’s study, entitled Industry 4.0 engages customers, says that cyber-physical systems will create a “loop” which will profoundly and irreversibly affect the ways in which businesses interact with consumers.

“In Industry 4.0, manufacturing systems and the objects they create are not just connected, drawing information from the physical world into the digital realm,” says Deloitte. “Instead, Industry 4.0 takes this concept one step further: That digital information is then analyzed and used to drive further intelligent action in the physical world, completing a physical-to-digital-to-physical loop of action and informed reaction.

“This loop of intelligent, autonomous digital activity – and the Industry 4.0 technologies that drive it – affect the ways in which companies engage with their customers and meet customers’ ever-changing preferences.”